Tottenham’s Harry Kane Keeps it Interesting at the Top!

#FPL OCD – Gameweek 30 Review:

I notice the damp patch where I lay…

Ed: Between John waking up this morning, wetting himself, writing this and me posting it, the Double Gameweek fixtures have been announced for GWs 34 and 37. You can read more about that HERE.

Continue on reading though.. This week John turns a corner and flirts dangerously close to the concept of sounding optimistic.

This…this is a breakthrough week…

Tuesday morning. I awake with a start, sit upright, and try to collect my thoughts. The alarm beeps next to me; I tentatively push out an arm and try to locate the sound, shaking as I turn it off. I won’t be going back to sleep today; this churning in my stomach, a mixture of fear, nerves and excitement, will not allow it. I take a sip of last night’s water, gulp, and stagger out of bed. I notice the damp patch where I lay, the sweat an unavoidable consequence of the thoughts cascading through my mind. At least I hope it’s sweat. I steady myself against the wall, my knees crumbling as I try to walk unsupported. As I inch towards the window, my fate concealed behind the curtain, I pause, terrified of what lies ahead, wondering how I will cope if it is the same as before. No, no, it doesn’t bear thinking about. I take one last breath, open my eyes, and pull back the curtain. First I gasp, then a smile creeps across my face and, finally, I allow myself to weep. The beauty, the beauty is blinding. The sun beams through the glass, I hear the birds sing their morning song. I grab my phone, just to check, just to make sure. Frantically I type: “fantasy.premierleague.com”.

Yes, there it is: Overall Rank – 19,360. The curse has been broken, the limbo has been breached. Groundhog Day is over, and I am able to live again.

Yes, the world seems a different place today. In this most testing of gameweeks, with only 10 teams playing, I managed a score of 68, all while saving my free transfer. My planning finally came to fruition, and in what looked like a fixture list half empty to most, I was determined to turn it into fixture list half full. With that in mind, I will try to be more positive today, and get the negatives out of the way very quickly. The only gripe, really, was that, on Friday afternoon, I changed captains. After having the armband on Harry Kane all week, I decided to go for Aguero, costing me a truly phenomenal week of 79, and a place comfortably in the top 15k. Add that to my losses of last week, and I could genuinely be around the 5k mark. Anyway, mustn’t grumble…

Kompany, Alderweireld, Fuchs, Sigurdsson, Alli and Kane. Heroes of the week, propelling me to a GW rank of 107k, beaten only this season by my memorable 116 pointer in GW8. Last week, after the dust had settled, I thought to myself “move past the disappointments: this has set you up for the weeks to come, this could all work out”. I must try to view these final weeks as a collective; there may be regrets week by week, but it is one chunk, one long spell that I have been waiting for all season. The fact that 68 points gave me a GW rank of 107k shows that many, many people struggled this week, that people were unprepared and had substandard teams, or took hits. FPL is a marathon, not a sprint, and as I have often said this season, many of the experienced players have been in the chasing pack, waiting to pounce in the home straight. It is an unparalleled stretch of DGWs and blanks, and still I sit with my wildcard and chips intact. Last week was just a slight shift to position myself nicely – this week was where the move really began.

Ed: Last week, John also kindly provided me with a injury status update on Yaya Toure. Needless to say I was eternally grateful and responded in kind. FY

Of course, nothing is ever guaranteed in FPL, particularly in this strangest of seasons. We have sat with the presumption that these bumper double gameweeks and chips will provide us with astronomical scores, but would it really surprise anyone if, say, triple captain Aguero limped off after 5 minutes? Or if our attackers blanked, or missed one gameweek out of two? We cannot rely solely on those weeks, so every good score prior to then is invaluable.

While I have escaped the 20-50k back and forth for now, I have entered another limbo, as I am unable to plan my next moves before the DGW announcements. I have my wildcard, ready to be deployed in either GW33 or GW36, yet I have no idea when the matches will fall. With 2FTs in my pocket, there is a chance that I can get out a good enough GW34 team to then use my WC before the final DGW, though at the moment I am leaning towards using it earlier and blitzing the first DGW, while setting myself up for the following weeks. However, I can have no clarity on this without knowledge of the fixtures, and if the announcement is not made soon, I will struggle to use one of my FTs this week. If I decide to use my WC in GW36, then I have to use all of my pre-GW34 transfers on DGW players. If I decide to use it in GW33, then it can be short-term punt time for the next couple.

For now, I will bask in this March sunshine. My 20k+ limbo began in December, the very week that winter started, that the freeze took hold, the days became shorter and shorter, the weather more and more miserable. Spring, the time of change, of new life, of fresh starts, of the sun returning, begins this very week. For the first time since last year, London has been bathed in sun for the past 3 days. Indeed the sun appeared to come out in full force on Sunday afternoon, when Sigurdsson and co were bringing in the points for my team.

My FPL side has been in hibernation for the winter, remaining still and conserving its energy for the run-in to summer. The winter of our discontent has passed, spring has arrived, and we veterans are stirring. We now have to ensure that it is no false dawn.

John went to University, finished his degree, and got a good job in the City of London. He is now in the process of throwing it all away in favour of FPL, a game with no notable rewards for success. He firmly believes this to be the correct decision.